"Miserly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... experienced the feelings I describe, dear reader, I pity you, and am forced to conclude that you must have been either awkward or miserly, and ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova • David Widger
... have mentioned Voiture's name, I shall add a very droll "soi-disant" impromptu of his, composed to ridicule Mademoiselle Chapelain, the sister of the poet. Like her brother, she was most miserly in her habits, and not distinguished by that virtue which some ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... You can do it if you like! PRINCESS. But, papa, where in the world is the Court? There is positively no one here to receive us! I can't help feeling that Rudolph wants to get out of it because I'm poor. He's a miserly little wretch—that's what he is. PRINCE. Well, I shouldn't go so far as to say that. I should rather describe him as an enthusiastic collector of coins—of the realm—and we must not be too hard upon a numismatist if ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... dawned upon her; and then, in utter disgust, she retired from a world that hardly missed her, and which had long only tolerated her for the accidents of her connections and surroundings. Her disposition for saving grew into a passion; she became miserly in the extreme, and punished herself night and day in order that she might add continually to the pile of hoarded money which Marion afterwards spent with a lavish prodigality. Occasionally her thin, gray face, ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... miserly fashion. Luckily for her work-girls, Miss Pinnegar took her own orders, and received payments for her own productions. Some of her regular customers paid her a shilling a week—or less. But it made a small, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous. All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism, strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... think so. Of course I did not know Monsieur de Villefort's first wife, but, from what I have heard of her, she was very miserly, and a fit companion for her husband. Old Madame de St. Meran, too, was not ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... injuring others and in practising deception on the world, lead a happy life. There are some who attain prosperity without any exertion. And there are others, who with the utmost exertion, are unable to achieve their dues. Miserly persons with the object of having sons born to them worship the gods, and practise severe austerities, and those sons having remained in the womb for ten months at length turn out to be very infamous issue of their race; and others begotten under the same auspices, decently pass ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the last man on earth she would never dream of marrying him. In fact, she never expected to stop being John Oskamp's widow. So since then I only laugh when I see old Amasa coming around and fetching big bouquets of flowers from his garden, which he must hate to pull, he's so miserly." ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... the best instance of all—the other grandson of the Bearnais, Louis XIV., my ex-master. Well, I hope he is miserly enough, he who would not lend a million to his brother Charles! Good! I see you are beginning to be angry. Here we are, by good luck, close to my house, or rather to that of my friend, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fish," Jacket wheedled, "for the sake of Miguelito, who is bravely fighting in the manigua, to the shame of his miserly old father, fattening on the groans of good patriots like me! Must I remind you again that Miguelito was my brother? That I have robbed my own belly in order to give ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... all. But how recklessly some people wield the judgments of God! If a man meet with business misfortune, how many there are ready to cry out: "That is a judgment of God upon him because he was unscrupulous, or arrogant, or overreaching, or miserly. I thought he would get cut down! What a clean sweep of everything! His city house and country house gone! His stables emptied of all the fine bays and sorrels and grays that used to prance by his door! All his resources overthrown, and all that he prided himself on tumbled ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... intended to write a companion volume to this, which should deal with the operations on land. But a short examination showed that these operations were hardly worth serious study. They teach nothing new; it is the old, old lesson, that a miserly economy in preparation may in the end involve a lavish outlay of men and money, which, after all, comes too late to more than partially offset the evils produced by the original short-sighted parsimony. This might be a lesson worth dwelling on did ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... The younger son, Murray, who had devoted the best years of his life to being a friend and companion to his father, while Percival ran after ballet-dancers and music-hall stars—Murray, who had avowedly been the apple of his father's eye in consequence—was left with a miserly pittance of L300 a year, and no share whatever in the gigantic business of Brooks & Sons, bacon curers, ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... some of the lower and grosser sins: If you boast of being a child of God, but still live in fornication, adultery, and such vices, the devil has already overcome you and wrested you from the kingdom of God. If you are miserly, injuring your neighbor by usury, by overcharging, by false wares and fraudulent business, you have permitted the world and your own flesh to overcome you for a penny. If you entertain envy and hatred toward ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... a howl of rage, for he felt her haunches move. He understood now—or thought he understood! She wanted a miserly pleasure, a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... original hospitality, locked up, through fear of being used; the clean and empty chimney, in which a fire is just now going to be made for the first time; and the emaciated figure of the cat, strongly mark the natural temper of the late miserly inhabitant, who could starve in the midst of plenty.—But see the mighty change! View the hero of our piece, left to himself, upon the death of his father, possessed of a goodly inheritance. Mark how his mind is affected!—determined to partake of the mighty ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... was the eldest of three brothers, Walter coming next, and Larry being the youngest. They were orphans, and at the death of their widowed mother had been left in the care of their uncle, Job Dowling, a miserly man whose chief aim in life had been to hoard money, no matter at what cost, so long as his method was within ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... "does the miserly old hayseed expect me to spend a million for newspapers, cigarettes and Boston terriers? I thought he ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... to see a girl economical," he remarked, frowning, "but there's a diff'rence between that and being miserly. And," with resolution, "I go further, and I say that if there's anybody who's got a just and fair and proper claim on your consideration, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... their reclamations. For different reasons. One of the motives put forward by the Provisional Government is the debt of the civil list, which amounts to thirty millions. Queer ideas about Louis Philippe were entertained. He may have been covetous, but he certainly was not miserly; he was the most prodigal, the most extravagant and least careful of men: he had debts, accounts and arrears everywhere. He owed 700,000 francs to a cabinet-maker; to his market gardener he owed 70,000 francs ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... maker of gold chains, who was married to Coupeau's sister. He was a little man who looked much older than his age, and suffered from a constant cough. Miserly and spiteful, he was jealous of the Coupeaus in their success, and rejoiced ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... the pleasure of it is to imagine a vain thing. Their occasional outbursts of extravagance and generosity go to show that their innermost taste has not found a suitable outlet in wage-earning economy. That miserly "thrift" which is preached to them as the whole duty of "the Poor"—what attractions can it have for their human nature? If men practise it, they do so under the compulsion of anxiety, of fear. Their acquiescence may seem like a change; yet as it springs from no germinating tastes ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... endless confusion, and those only are illustrious and great who are distinguished by their virtue and liberality, as well as their riches; for the great man who is vicious is only a great sinner, and the rich man who wants liberality is but a miserly pauper. ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... triumphant royalty; true to religion and true to the priesthood, but firmly resolved to bear in silence the shocks of fate. Such an attitude cannot be considered that of maintaining opinions, it becomes sheer obstinacy. Action is the essence of party. Without intelligence, but loyal, miserly as a peasant yet noble in demeanor, bold in his wishes but discreet in word and action, turning all things to profit, willing even to be made mayor of Cinq-Cygne, Monsieur d'Hauteserre was an admirable ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... him miserly. Old Therese, the woman with the fish-cart, used to say that he was the stingiest man in all Tourraine. She ought to know, for she had sold him a fish every Friday during all those twenty years, and he had never once failed to quarrel about the price. Five years had gone by since the ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... volume tells how the hero ran away from his miserly guardian, fell in with a successful airman, and became a ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... spent with both hands, made him welcome among them. Well pleased to enjoy themselves at his expense, the young nobles paid him a sort of court. As to Bernardone, he was too happy to see his son associating with them to be niggardly as to the means. He was miserly, as the course of this history will show, but his pride and self-conceit exceeded ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... gayly whistling "Donna e Mobile," with certain private variations of his own, until he reached the splendid monument erected to the miserly old Duke of Brunswick, who showered his scraped-up millions upon an alien city, to spite his own fat-witted Brunswickers, and so escaped the blood-fleshed ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... who should be made cardinal," said the duchess, "rather than certain great lords of my acquaintance; but as soon as we can dispose of the blue and the red, be easy, gentlemen, we shall not be miserly. Now, chevalier, you have heard what the prince said. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... of angling with great dexterity and patience, under the direction of both her parents, my handsome sister Annabella had succeeded in catching an eligible husband, in the shape of a wizen, miserly, mahogany-colored man, turned fifty, who had made a fortune in the West Indies. His name was Batterbury; he had been dried up under a tropical sun, so as to look as if he would keep for ages; he had two subjects of conversation, the yellow-fever ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... hard-earned shilling, whose leaden imaginations never soared above the prospect of a good bargain, and whose summum bonum is the inspiring idea of counting a hundred thousand: I say I have been listening to these miserly beings till the idea did not seem so repugnant of lowering my noble art to a trade, of painting for money, of degrading myself and the soul-enlarging art which I possess, to the narrow ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... exception the great room lay unused. It went up through two stories, and could have been made into several small flats; but the owner of the property—an old peasant from Glostrup—was so miserly that he could not find it in his heart to spend money on it, notwithstanding the great advantage it would be to him. Ellen had no objection to this! She dried her customers' washing there, and escaped all the coal- dust and dirt ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen." Other men have other ranks to take, other fates to command. Do not politicians and publicists; professional men and princes of trade; those who toil for others, with brain or hands; the charitable and the miserly; those who pine if removed from the noise and breath of the crowd; those who spend their days in meditation and study; those who live conscientiously every moment in "the gateway of the life eternal"; ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... industry. "I may make a million dollars from this reaper," said McCormick, in the full tide of enthusiasm over his invention; and these words indicate an indispensable part of his program. He had no miserly instinct but he had one overpowering ambition. It was McCormick's conviction, almost religious in its fervor, that the harvester business of the world belonged to him. As already indicated, plenty of other hardy spirits, many of them ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... some sweet, some bitter lessons— none wiser than this: To spend in all things else, but of one's friends to be most miserly. ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... my wife and girls take care of the household matters. You are clever, he said to me; I will give you the inspection of the linen, which you shall mend and keep in order, taking good charge of laundry matters. Frederika [now thirteen, married to ANSPACH two years hence], who is miserly, shall have charge of all the stores of the house. Charlotte [now eleven, Duchess of BRUNSWICK by and by] shall go to market and buy our provisions; and my Wife shall take charge of the little children, [says Friedrich Wilhelm], and of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... even go further, and assert that, if millions of Irishmen have lived and died paupers, owing to the barbarous laws enacted for that special purpose, few indeed among them have been reduced even by hard necessity and the extreme of misery to manifest a pauper spirit and a miserly bent. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... him—good looks and money. He was accounted a handsome man, and was as far as physical beauty was concerned. He had the body and muscle of an athlete, but there was nothing ennobling or inspiring in the expression of his countenance. By nature he was crafty, mean, cruel, and miserly, and was one of the ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... drawing-room and then the hostess began: 'What a pretty dress!' she said to me. 'Did you notice it? Would you believe that Emmeline has had that dress five years. I can remember it. She is so careful—so orderly!' 'All right,' I thought to myself, 'a lot of miserly wretches who mean to take ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... them our couple was much discussed. Something got to be known of Jamie,—that he was confidential clerk to the well-known firm of Boston's older ship-owners, and that she was his adopted daughter. Soon the rumor grew that he was miserly and rich. ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her adventures and travels make stories that will hold the ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... a man who was weighed down by his family, was anxious to be always saving, and he had thereby become as miserly as he could well be. Wherefore it is related that, having received at Parma a payment of sixty crowns in copper coins, and wishing to take them to Correggio to meet some demand, he placed the money on his back and set out to walk on foot; but, being ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... she knew that he was not really what he made people think he was. She had a ready sense of humour, and she felt that under his ponderous disguise of importance he was quite a ridiculous person. He was miserly to meanness; he was as vain as an ape; he was a man who had flattered himself, and had been flattered by others, into a sort of artificially inflated doll that imposed on many people and deceived almost all. And yet Ortensia was aware of something in him that frightened her a ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... of the story begins when the miserly old miner—who, all the time unknown to Jerry, is hoarding up gold for his young ward—discovers, to his great astonishment, that gold has no fascination for this strange young man, and fears that with his lofty ideals all his toil for him will be in vain and unappreciated. ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... The poor most welcome—to Learning's treasure, And drink their fill without stint or measure? Who hath so nobly used his thrift, And bestowed on the world this priceless gift, Free to all, whoever may come? Was this noble work built up by the 'masses,' Or by one of the 'miserly, upper classes'?" ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... alone are loved. There is a love of honors and dignities with a view to the increase of wealth. There is a love of wealth for the sake of various uses that give delight in the world. There is a love of wealth merely for the sake of wealth, which is a miserly love; and so on. The end for the sake of which wealth is sought is called its use; and it is the end or use that gives to love its quality; for the love is such as is the end in view, and all other things ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... (163) The miserly guardian of Cecilia, in Fanny's novel. Among the "Fragments of the journal of Charlotte Anne Burney," appended to the "Early Diary," occurs the following passage, written at the end of 1782. "Fanny's Cecilia came out last summer, and is as much liked and read ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... uncle. Monsieur Rogron and his sister Sylvia. A hard, gloomy couple, these two; retired shopkeepers, who live in a dreary house in the back streets of a dreary country town. Their celibacy weighs heavily upon them; they are miserly, and absurdly vain; morose, and instinctively full ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... England, there were two brothers named Nickleby who had grown up to be very different men. Ralph was a rich and miserly money-lender who gained his wealth by persecuting the poor of London—a thin, cold-hearted, crafty man with a cruel smile. The other, who lived in the country, was generous but poor, so that when he died he left his wife and two ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... attached to you, and, since seeing me in one of my attacks of pain, he is constantly reminding me how precarious is my life and that if he had a daughter like you she should have every advantage money could buy. He is a rough specimen with a miserly reputation. I won't go into the occasions of weakness and need which have resulted in his power over me. Suffice it to say that he may bring cruel pressure to bear on you, and I want to warn you solemnly not to let any consideration ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... all-angelicalness, with long curly hair and mauve eyes which grew dim with rapture at sight of a Botticelli, there was a thoroughly practical, business-like young man, who took admirable care of his fortune and was even somewhat miserly. However, he contented himself with lowering his eyelids and assuming a languorous air. "Oh!" said he, "I'm all reverie; my ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... building and fitting must be magnificent, and the current expenditure for cleaning and refitting magnanimous; but a certain proportion of this current cost should be covered by small entrance fees, exacted, not for any miserly helping out of the floor-sweepers' salaries, but for the sake of the visitors themselves, that the rooms may not be incumbered by the idle, or disgraced by the disreputable. You must not make your Museum a refuge against either ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... thorns which are the most difficult to bear. The household of the mind is a thrifty one, and only so much is spent as is necessary. There is no squandering on trifles, and its wealth of strength is saved up with miserly strictness to meet the really big calamities. So any amount of weeping and wailing over the lesser griefs fails to evoke a charitable response. But when sorrow is deepest there is no stint of effort. Then the surface crust is pierced, and consolation ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... fool, whatever the division thought, and he was right down to the basic root of things from the start. Coupled with the stunted growth that nature in a miserly mood had doled out to him, none knew better than himself that the name of "Toddles," keeping that nature stuff patently before everybody's eyes, damned him in his aspirations for a bona fide railroad ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... their twenties, had lived in Athens for a year or longer, and now, conscious of their approaching departure, they had fallen to talking of the past months. A strange power Athens seemed to have of exacting from aliens the intimate loyalty of sons. Here, Paulus felt, was no miserly counting up of gains, but an inner concern with art and history. Not as gluttonous travellers, but as those facing a long exile, they talked of a city richer than Rome or Alexandria or Antioch, richer than all the cities of the Empire taken together, in masterpieces of architect and sculptor and ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... his mother, but he did find precious little fun and plenty of the hardest kind of work. The miserly farmer bore down heavily on his young shoulders. He and his wife seemed to be continually finding extra labor for the lad. The little fellow was on hand each morning, in stormy as well as in clear weather, at daybreak, ready and willing to perform to the best ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... of merciless financiers gathered together so many millions of gold coin that its price bred fright among the holders of depreciating stocks. Agony, ruin, the demolition of firesides, resulted from this infamous "corner" wrought by a league of miserly zealots. But our young student of Wall Street annals will soon harden his nerves against any silly commiseration. As well soil the glory of Lexington or Bunker Hill by brooding over the pangs of those who were its victims. All great victories necessitate bloodshed. It is not every man ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... buttoned his coat tightly about his thinning figure and scowled as he followed her through the gate. He scowled at that invisible fate which preceded them both. Now, at the end of five years, they were living in a tenement house, a crowded, filthy place, ruled by a miserly, relentless landlord, whose gold was ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Some merchants are misers" is of the right kind, since "merchants" and "misers" are Specieses of the same Genus "men"; and since the Name "merchants" conveys the idea of the Attribute "mercantile", and the name "misers" the idea of the Attribute "miserly", each of which ideas is not conveyed ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... miserly coward," she declared. "I'm not robbing you; you will have an abundance for your needs. Why do you quarrel with Dame Fortune? Don't you realize you can pay your rent now and eat three square meals a day, and not have to work and slave for them? You can smoke a good ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... standing army. He secured new and advantageous treaties with old and historic foes, putting Graustark's financial credit upon a high footing in the European capitals. The people smugly regarded themselves as safe in the hands of the miserly but honest old financier. If he accomplished many things by way of office to enhance his own particular fortune, no one looked askance, for he made no effort to blind or deceive his people. Of his honesty there could be no ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... think, or edge my thoughts to action, When the miserly press of each day's need Aches to a narrowness of spilled distraction My soul appalled at the world's work's time-greed? How can I pause my thoughts upon the task My soul was born to think that it must do When every moment has a thought to ask To fit the immediate craving of its cue? The coin I'd ...
— 35 Sonnets • Fernando Pessoa
... currently reported that M. Thiers has been guilty of treating certain members of his family with great meanness, and in society many scandalous stories have been repeated illustrating his miserly economy. ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... thanked him and said: "One like myself, who has given up the world, must not be miserly. I have beautiful pears myself, and I invite you all to eat them with me." Then some one asked: "If you have pears then why do you not eat your own?" He answered: "I first must have a ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... druggist, "but the almighty dollar has been his sole aim and ambition. He has been selfish and miserly in the pursuit of it, and money is all he has gained. Now Todd has been industrious enough, and gone about his business quite as faithfully as Ab, but instead of putting his head down like a dog on the scent of a rabbit, he has had some thought of the people ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a widower, with one daughter, Mary, about three years older than I, and certainly she was the dearest little treasure with which Providence ever blessed a miserly father; by the time she was fifteen, five farmers, three lawyers, twelve Protestant parsons, and a lieutenant of Dragoons had made her offers: it must not be denied that she was an heiress as well as a beauty, which, perhaps, had something to do with the love of these ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that time, surely this disagreeable fancy of his would die away, if untrue; and if true, some way would be opened by which she might put a stop to all increase of predilection on his part, and yet retain him as a friend for Leonard—that darling for whom she was far-seeing and covetous, and miserly of every scrap of ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... his Majesty offers, my good Lincolnshire squire, is more to your children than the few loaves and fishes which you might leave them. We all know how miserly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... considered a good miller," said Helen, again; "and he does not neglect his property. He is not miserly in that way. There isn't a picket off the fence, or a hinge loose anywhere. He isn't at all what you consider a miser must be and look like; yet he is always hoarding money and never spends any. But indeed I do not tell you this to trouble ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... harbor. And yet when something does really touch her—when something makes her feel—that curious indecision in her nature hardens into something irresistible. There was a half-witted girl in the village, ill-treated and enslaved by a miserly old aunt. Miss Coryston happened to hear of it from her maid, who was a relation of the girl. She went and bearded the aunt, and took the girl away bodily in her pony-cart. The scene in the cottage garden—Marcia with her arm round ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hid them away in a stocking, or a purse, or in a jar, or a cracked cooking pot, that couldn't be used. Often they put it away somewhere in the chimney, behind a loose brick. Then, at night, when no one was looking, these miserly folks counted, rubbed, jingled, and gloated over the shining coins and never helped anybody. So there grew up three sorts of people, called the thrifty, the spendthrifts, and the misers. These last were the meanest and most disliked of all. Others, again, hid their money away, ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... berries on the hills, and in utter amazement she turned to the equally astonished colonel for an explanation. It cams to him after a little. That bookcase, with its false bottom and secret drawers, had been the hiding place of the miserly John Stanley's gold. In his will, he had spoken of that particularly, bidding Hugh be careful of it, as it had come to him from his grandfather, and this was the result. What had been a mystery to the colonel was explained. He knew what John Stanley had done with all his money, and that Hugh Worthington's ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... The Indian regarded the honey-bee as an ill-omen. She was the white man's fly. In fact she was the epitome of the white man himself. She has the white man's craftiness, his industry, his architectural skill, his neatness and love of system, his foresight; and above all his eager, miserly habits. The honeybee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough will not satisfy her, she must have all she can get by hook or by crook. She comes from the oldest country, Asia, and thrives best in ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... you can only see just what is under your feet, but if you go first this way and then that, then you see everything. You are nearly as silly as the ants, who never see anything beautiful all their lives. Be sure you have nothing to do with the ants, Bevis; they are a mean, wretched, miserly set, quite contemptible and beneath notice. Now I go everywhere all round the field, and spend my time searching for lovely things; sometimes I find flowers, and sometimes the butterflies come down into the grass and tell me the news, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... Jim and motioned him to sit beside her. He could not help thinking of the humiliating addition he was about to announce to the family. While his father counted out the change with a miserly accuracy he winked his off eye at Jim and growled, with a ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... places, which with much difficulty being at last agreed on, we proceed to a whet of old hock to sharpen our appetites to our approaching dinner; though I confess my stomach was as keen already as a greyhound's to his supper after a day's coursing, or a miserly livery-man's, who had fasted three days to prepare himself for a Lord Mayor's feast. The honest cook gave us no leisure to tire our appetites by a tedious expectancy; for in a little time the cloth was laid, and our first course was ushered up by the dominus factotum ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... indeed. The miserly marquis had become, to him, something other than a curious survival of times past. There was a chance for Logan, his friend, the last of the name, but Logan was firmly affianced to Miss Markham, of the cloak department at Madame Claudine's. And the marquis, ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... Sunday-school festival of tea and cake in an English village; we have a crazy gypsy, in a scarlet cloak, singing snatches of romantic song, and revealing a secret on her death-bed which, with the testimony of a dwarfish miserly merchant, who salutes strangers with a curse and a devilish laugh, goes to prove that Ernest, the model young clergyman, is Kate's brother; and we have an ultra-virtuous Irish Barney, discovering that a document is forged, by comparing the date of the paper with the date of the alleged ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... a kindly man enough to live with, but miserly; counted his cheeses, and kept good note of every tuft of wool; Oline could not do as she liked with things, not by a long way. And then that matter of the accident last year, when she had saved him—if Axel had been the right sort, he would have given her the credit for it ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... very ropes across the ceiling had gone down into the old "bear's" inventory, and not the smallest item was omitted; jobbing chases, wetting-boards, paste-pots, rinsing-trough, and lye-brushes had all been put down and valued separately with miserly exactitude. The total amounted to thirty thousand francs, including the license and the goodwill. David asked himself whether or not this ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... that, Ben," returned Dave. "Nat spends considerable money—although how he gets it from that miserly father of his I don't know—and that makes him some friends. But I, too, wish he wasn't going ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... hand striking him in the middle of his back flung him contemptuously forward into it; a gasping cry of protest and all was over. Had time been permitted him he would have stretched out a hand towards the shabby black box that, true to all miserly convention, occupied the space beneath his bed. Time was not allowed him. He might take with him into the darkness neither money nor ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... deep-set, serious eyes, and firm mouths, with lips close together. The air on this hill-top must be of excellent quality; the life up here could scarcely be so hard as in the field villages. For the women looked less worn, and less hideously old, and in the men's eyes there was not so hard and miserly a glittering. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... which he was treated. His master was a man of violent temper, who, finding he possessed little aptitude for shoemaking, tried to make him love it, first by flogging, and afterwards by half-starvation; following in the last-named measure the advice of his miserly help-mate, who believed it the best way of developing genius. In vain did William try by gentleness and zeal to soften their harshness; he had no one to interfere in his behalf, and he was made boy of all work, and scolded and blamed from morning till night. None loved him, and ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... going to bother to look for him any more," said Snap, who was disgusted with the cowardly and miserly farmer. "We are ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... Nature's stupendous laboratory; and from such grains enough of the essence might, perhaps, have been drawn forth, to add a few years of existence to some feeble graybeard—granting, what rests on no proofs, that some of the alchemists reached an age rarely given to man. But it is not in the miserly crucible, it is in the matrix of Nature herself, that we must seek in prolific abundance Nature's grand principle—life. As the loadstone is rife with the magnetic virtue, as amber contains the electric, so in this substance, to which we ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... useful work for the town. Personally, he was anything but amiable, being devoid of education and refinement, and priding himself on his spirit of independence, which exhibited itself in mere boorishness. Though anything but miserly, he had, where his interests were concerned, an extraordinary cunning and pertinacity; he was universally regarded as one of the shrewdest men of business in that part of Yorkshire, and report credited him with any number of remarkable meannesses. It was popularly ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... its existence to this belief is the story of Bishop Hatto, the miserly prelate, who, annoyed by the clamours of the poor during a time of famine, had them burned alive in a deserted barn, like the rats whom he declared they resembled, rather than give them some of the precious grain which he had ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... somewhere about the place. Naturally enough, every one who had since come to live at the mill had tried to find the treasure; but none had ever succeeded, and the local wiseacres said that nobody ever would, unless the ghost of the miserly miller should, one day, take a fancy to one of the tenants, and disclose to him the ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... strictly in subservience to the dictates of ill-regulated desires and emotions, suffering defeat in their hope of indulgence, and stimulating to a morbid action which became a disease. The references of Munro were always addressed to the petty gains; and the miserly nature, thus perpetually exhibiting itself, at the expense of all other emotions, was, in fact, the true influence which subjected him almost to the sole dictation of his accomplice, in whom a somewhat lofty ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... trees, but conspicuous above any, in the very center, was a giant sycamore, split at its base into three large trees, whose waving branches seemed to sweep the face of heaven, and whose roots, like miserly fingers, clutched deep into the black ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... me, was becoming daily worse and worse. 'There is no living for the poor people, brother,' said he, 'the chokengres (police) pursue us from place to place, and the gorgios are become either so poor or miserly, that they grudge our cattle a bite of grass by the way side, and ourselves a yard of ground to light a fire upon. Unless times alter, brother, and of that I see no probability, unless you are made ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... so miserly that I was struck dumb by this sudden generosity, and could find no words in which ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... standpoint of a statesman. To order expenditure of all kinds, even useless ones, does not constitute bad management. Such acts contribute to the movement of money, the stagnation of which becomes, especially in France, dangerous to the public welfare, by reason of the miserly and profoundly illogical habits of the ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... Camden Neild, an eccentric and miserly bachelor, nominally a barrister, died on the 30th of August, bequeathing substantially the whole of his fortune (amounting to half a million) to the Queen. As there were no known relatives, the Queen felt able to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... age and unattractive appearance—two or three lonely spinsters, eking out their pitiful little incomes as best they might, by the surreptitious sale of delicate embroideries, confectioned in their dismal leisure; and a fat elderly widow, popularly supposed to be enormously rich, but of miserly propensities. "It is the widow of Harpagon himself," Madame Magnotte told her gossips—an old woman with two furiously ugly daughters, who for the last fifteen years had lived a nomadic life in divers boarding-houses, fondly clinging ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the earliest times a landmark of the old Santa Fe trail. When the freighters and plainsmen left the village and climbed to the top of the slope and set their faces to the west there lay before them only the wilderness wastes. Here Nature, grown miserly, offered not even a stick of timber to mend a broken cart-pole in all the thousand miles between the Neosho and the Spanish ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... heart swelled with joy, for was there not given to her here unquestionable evidence of her success in the application of loving-kindness? Assuredly it was no small triumph to have brought drunken, riotous, close-fisted, miserly, fierce Mrs Rampy to pour her hard-won savings at her feet, for which on her knees she thanked God that night fervently. Meanwhile, however, she said, with a grave ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... columns and a balcony, warped all askew, there was once living a lady, a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of her miserly and dreary old age. Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had long been over; but the evening of her life was blacker ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... predecessor had made; and begins the lengthy repast that shall transform it into a perfect insect. But nature, that has decreed this ordeal of battle, has, on the other hand, established the prize of victory with such miserly precision that nothing short of an entire egg will suffice for the nourishment of a single triongulin. So that, as we are informed by M. Mayet, to whom we owe the account of these disconcerting adventures, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... parallel period, and which was much worse among the French, who have a choice selection of epithets for it. But the fortunes of the youthful Thomas—child of a prostitute of the lowest class, though a very good mother, who afterwards marries a miserly and ruffianly corporal of police—are told with a good deal of spirit—one even thinks of Colonel Jack—and the author shows his curious vulgar common sense, and his knowledge of human nature of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... intervention; and particularly the curious piece of enamel; for though you are, as usual, generous enough to offer it to me, I have plundered you too often already; and indeed I have room left for nothing more, nor have that miserly appetite of continuing to hoard what I cannot enjoy, nor have much time left ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... mine had been discovered some century or more ago by a Frenchman, who had settled down in the country and married the daughter of a native chief. The original founder of the mine was a curious sort of man, and was evidently possessed of strong miserly tendencies. Most men in his position would have gathered together a band of workers, and simply exploited the mine for all it was worth. However, this man, Le Fenu, did nothing of the kind. He kept his discovery an absolute secret, and what mining ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... next two hours Sunbridge, as represented by many of its most staid and stately homes, received the surprise of its life—a surprise that sent hitherto complacently contented women scurrying into attics and closets, and stirred reputedly miserly men into thrusting hands into inside pockets for ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... to his attempts at defence, sent him to prison. Now, in the East, the claws of justice open just as wide, and no wider than the purse of the culprit; and it may be supposed that Abon Casem, who was known to be as rich as he was miserly, did not get his freedom at the same rate ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... for praise or blame,—leather and prunella! Praise and blame are here!" and he struck his hand upon his breast with almost passionate emphasis. "Take a specimen. These Hogtons were the bane of the place,—uneducated and miserly; their land a wilderness, their village a pig-sty. I come, with capital and intelligence; I redeem the soil, I banish pauperism, I civilize all around me: no merit in me, I am but a type of capital guided by education,—a machine. And yet the old woman is not the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could remember he had visited the town regularly twice a month, each time tottering his lonely way homeward with a load of provisions. He appeared to be well supplied with funds, but purchased sparingly as became a miserly hermit. And so vicious was his tongue that few cared to converse with him, even the young hoodlums of the town hesitating to harass him with the banter usually accorded the other ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... lived in the little town of Tipton with his aunt, Miss Tabitha Brown. His father was an invalid, and at the present time was in the South, seeking to recuperate his failing health, and Mrs. Jordan was with him as his nurse. They had left Frank in charge of the aunt, who was a miserly, fault-finding person, and for nearly a month the lad had not ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning. Farewell. Don't write a word about the book. That would be robbing me of my miserly delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you—it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So, now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step from ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Gaudissart' (The Illustrious Gaudissart), and 'La Muse du departement' (The Departmental Muse). Of these 'Eugenie Grandet' is of course easily first in interest, pathos, and power. The character of old Grandet, the miserly father, is presented to us with Shakespearean vividness, although Eugenie herself has, less than the Shakespearean charm. Any lesser artist would have made the tyrant himself and his yielding wife and daughters seem caricatures ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the dread crisis had come. He turned a little green, for he was very miserly-for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... interested me, after so many years, to see the two women together. Tiny audits Lena's accounts occasionally, and invests her money for her; and Lena, apparently, takes care that Tiny doesn't grow too miserly. 'If there's anything I can't stand,' she said to me in Tiny's presence, 'it's a shabby rich woman.' Tiny smiled grimly and assured me that Lena would never be either shabby or rich. 'And I don't want to be,' the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... which it holds securely in its close grasp and guards from the least loss. Thus is it separate from all other objects around it and is miserly. But when lighted it finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and near is established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to feed ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... eventually recovered his mother's fortune, but Rembrandt himself never rose above the misery, degradation, and poverty of this period. He lived thirteen years longer, but it was in obscurity—out of which the only records which reach us, are stories of miserly habits acquired too late to serve their purpose, a desperate resort to low company dating from his first wife's death, and his ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... cold and restrained in manner, and these unfortunate traits appear to have been fully shared by her husband. The latter was somewhat deaf, which added to the apparent reserve of his manner; he was, moreover, credited with the possession of a miserly disposition. ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... to feel bound to maintain me, should be rolling in wealth, and cottoned up in a palace. But he shall fork out. Sophy must be hunted up. I will clothe her in rags like these. She shall sit at his street-door. I will shame the miserly hunks. But how track the girl? Have I no other hold over him? Can I send Dolly Poole to him? How addled my brains are!—want of food, want of sleep. Is ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... left her, his heart overflowing with joy. He worked steadily, spent little, tried to save some money that he might not be without a sou at the time of his marriage, and became as miserly as he had once been prodigal. Summer glided by; then autumn, and no one suspected the tie existing between Duroy and Mme. Forestier, for they seldom met ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... to the great city, without folding wing; merely stopping a moment to torment a miserly old landlord, who, the day before, had turned a poor widow, with two little children, out of his tenement house, because she was not quite ready with the rent. I put a great fly on his nose, and a great flea in his ear, and ordered them to stay there, and buzz, ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Descending into an abyss, whence she still could see the sky, she devoted herself to the care of one man as the sister of charity devotes herself to many. To reconcile him with himself, she forgave him that for which he had no forgiveness. The count grew miserly; she accepted the privations he imposed. Like all who have known the world only to acquire its suspiciousness, he feared betrayal; she lived in solitude and yielded without a murmur to his mistrust. With a woman's tact she made him will to do that ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... single ruler who resembles his predecessor or his successor. Yet all these Hohenzollerns, whether capable or incapable, whether mad, half-mad, or sane, whether profligate or domesticated, whether extravagant or miserly, have certain common traits. They have all been inspired with the same dynastic policy. When we consider the individual variations from the family type, there can be here no question of physical heredity, like the lip of the Habsburg or the tainted blood of the Spanish ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... widow—died he was adopted by a tyrannical uncle, a miserly farmer, who made him do chores around the homestead in return for his keep. But the boy detested farming. His young soul yearned for a glimpse of the great outside world, of which he had read and knew nothing, and his desperation grew, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... of broiled eels. A rich merchant, named Kisaburo, who was very miserly with his money, once moved his quarters next door to the shop of one Kichibei, who caught and cooked eels for a living. During the night Mr. Kichibei caught his stock in trade, and in the day-time served them, smoking hot, to his customers. Cut into pieces three or ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... Garden Spot county, and the Jonas Miller bank account grew correspondingly fast. But the bank account, however quickly it increased, failed to give Jonas Miller and his wife full pleasure, unless, as some say, the mere knowledge of possession of wealth can bring pleasure to miserly hearts. For Jonas Miller was, in the vernacular of the Pennsylvania Dutch, "almighty close." Millie, Reists' hired girl, said," That there Jonas is too stingy to buy long enough pants for himself. I bet he gets boys' size because they're cheaper, for the legs o' them always just come to the ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... in her dressing-room by celebrated men and women, Leonora began to find Salvatti's tyranny unbearable. She now saw him as he really was: miserly, petulant, spoiled by praise. Every bit of her money that came into his hands disappeared, she knew not where. Eager for revenge, though really answering the lure of the elegant world she glimpsed in the distance but was not yet a part of, she began to deceive Salvatti in passing ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... before reporting for duty. It seemed a miserly allowance. Instinctively he glanced at his wrist-watch. An ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... grooming, looked nearly as fresh as if he had not been out of his stable for the day. Never was a man more pleased with a horse than Job was with the noble animal he then bestrode, and deeply did he regret the urgent necessity which compelled him to part with him. "Had it not been for that old miserly fellow in there, I might still have kept my poor Selim," said Job to himself, as he rode by a large mansion at the verge of the town; "that L100," continued Job, "he obliged me to pay him or his attorney, for taking away the remnant of my little property, is the cause of those very embarrassments ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... things best understood By a fond parent, at the time, To he as sweet as music's chime. In him, though young, my eye can trace A something in his pretty face Which shows strong passion lurks within That childish breast—the fruit of sin. I also think I truly see A trait somewhat too miserly. I may be wrong—I hope I am, For 'twould be sad in ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... dare not run away; for she has a miserly father or mother who may not like her lover because he had not enough to give them for her; and she knows they will persecute her and perhaps shoot her husband. But this does not happen often. Just as, once in a hundred years in a Christian land, if a girl will run away with a young ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... that was really willing to work wouldn't need no help," grumbled the miserly storekeeper. "It is only on account of laziness you ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... happens that a prophet has no honor among his own people, and David was the black sheep of the miserly household of Denton Farm. It consisted of old Christopher Denton, his three sons, Matthew, Sam, and David, and his daughter Jennie. They had the reputation of being "people well-to-do," but they were not liked among the Cumberland "states-men," who ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... time he was thirty-three he done it—at what cost of scrimping and screwing, only his mother might have told. She never did tell, however, for she died two year before the last item was paid. Some went as far as to declare that 'twas her son's miserly ways hurried her into her grave; and, for all I know, they may have done so, for 'tis certain, in her husband's life, she had a better time. Tom was the large-hearted, juicy, easy sort, as liked meat on the table, and plenty to wash ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... inspect the individual democrat; and first, as in the case of the State, we will trace his antecedents. He is the son of a miserly oligarch, and has been taught by him to restrain the love of unnecessary pleasures. Perhaps I ought to explain this latter term:—Necessary pleasures are those which are good, and which we cannot do without; unnecessary ...
— The Republic • Plato
... mass of foliage of the Villa Medici behind it; the lofty tower of the Capitol in the midst of the city; and the sun clasping all to its heart of gold, the new and the old alike, past and present, youth, age and decay,—generous as only the sun can be in this sordid and miserly world, where bread is but another name for blood, and a rood of growing corn means a pound of human flesh. The sun is the only good thing in nature that always gives itself to man for nothing but the mere trouble of sitting in the sunshine; and Rome without sunshine ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... gouty—gouty, my dear; you do not know how gouty he was." The old fellow grinned scornfully; he had never had the gout. "Donna Tullia is a very young widow. Besides, think of the fortune. It would break old Saracinesca's heart to let so much money go out of the family. He is a miserly ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... You are no longer the same Moor. Do you remember how, a thousand times, bottle in hand, you made game of the miserly old governor, bidding him by all means rake and scrape together as much as he could, for that you would swill it all down your throat? Don't you remember, eh?—don't you remember?' O you good-for-nothing, miserable ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... after ourselves considering all the circumstances. But remember that you must study the moral qualities of these unfortunates: their hearts, the honorableness of their feelings; those are our guarantees. Miserly we may be for ourselves, and generous to those who suffer, but we must be prudent and even calculating, for we are dealing with the money of the poor. So then, to-morrow morning you can start; think over the power we put in your hands: the brothers ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... himself, whereas Master Grip had feloniously seized on the possession of another. There was that difference, certainly. Still, there was something in the thing Harry did not quite like. He was usually a kind, unselfish sort of boy, and he did not enjoy feeling that he was doing something rather miserly now. And then, just that evening, his mother had been reading some verses from the Bible to him, as she usually did, and one of them had been: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." He had not thought much about the words at the time, but they came back to ...
— The Good Ship Rover • Robina F. Hardy
... me. She used occasionally to throw out hints on the subject, which I treated as jokes; and when she confided to me, two years before the time which I am speaking of, that her brother-in-law, an old miserly grocer at—, had left Alice L1,500, she looked anxiously into my face, and seemed disappointed at the indifference with which I received this communication, which she charged me to keep a secret. She lived so much alone, and the nature of her character was such, that whatever ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... adventitious evil got from contact with others worse than himself, and shining out in the unclouded light of his own genuine goodness—to do my utmost to help his better self against his worse, and make him what he would have been if he had not, from the beginning, had a bad, selfish, miserly father, who, to gratify his own sordid passions, restricted him in the most innocent enjoyments of childhood and youth, and so disgusted him with every kind of restraint;—and a foolish mother who indulged him to the top of his bent, deceiving her husband for him, and doing ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... a poor child who was passing; "what I expect is, to have to work very hard for my living, and, as I am the eldest, I look upon it that I ought to do something for mamma, and the girls into the bargain. But for all that I hope I shall never turn a miserly screw. Why, when God gives us health, food, clothing, and lodging, don't you think that hoarding and hoarding, instead of dispensing the blessings, and performing such acts of kindness as may be in our power to bestow, is like doubting God's goodness and mercy ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... father insisted that she should marry another man; the settlements for this marriage had been drawn and the wedding day fixt, when Lady Mary left her father's house and married Montagu privately. Montagu was a man of some eminence in public life, but noted for miserly habits. He accumulated one of the largest ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... themselves, their neighbors, their God! See yon grey-headed fool, who hugs gold to his breast as a mother hugs her first born; he builds houses—he accumulates money—he dabbles in railroads. A great man, forsooth, is that miserly old wretch, who stoops from manhood to indulge the dirty promptings of a petty avarice. But is he happy? NO; how can such a thing be happy, even tho' he possess thousands accumulated by his detestable meanness—when men spit on him with contempt; decency kicks him, dishonorable care will ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... and thus secure to them some degree of independence when she could no longer provide for them. The daughters were good scholars and favorites in the school, so long as the mother was able to maintain them there. A young man, the nephew and clerk of a wealthy but miserly merchant, became acquainted with the daughters, and was specially attentive to the older one. The uncle disapproved of the conduct of his nephew, and failing to control it by honorable means, resorted to the circulation of the vilest slanders against mother and daughters. He was a man of wealth ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... evils of modern trade. The violin, speaking for the poor who stand wedged by the pressing of trade's hand and "weave in the mills and heave in the kilns," protests against the spirit of competition that says even when human life is involved, "Trade is only war grown miserly." Alas, for the poor to have some part In yon sweet living lands of art. Then the flute — Lanier's own flute, summing up the voices of nature, "all fair forms, and sounds, and lights" — echoes the words of the Master, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... on him thick and fast. The lessons of his inconsiderate past had already made a deep impression on his mind, and Paganini became very economical, a tendency which afterward developed into an almost miserly passion for money-getting and -saving, though, through his whole life, he performed many acts of magnificent generosity. He had numerous curious adventures, some of which are worth recording. At a concert in Leghorn he came on the stage, limping, from the effects ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... the commentator as 'miserly.' I think it may be taken also in a more extended sense. Then again vardhushi is a usurer and not necessarily ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... mission, one of the ambassadors, Dominic of Treviso, drew the following portrait of Louis XII.: "The king is in stature tall and thin, and temperate in eating, taking scarcely anything but boiled beef; he is by nature miserly and retentive; his great pleasure is hawking; from September to April he hawks. The Cardinal of Rouen [George d'Amboise] does everything; nothing, however, with-out the cognizance of the king, who has a far from stable ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... it ended, with political murder. The miserly Henry VII had made use of two tools, Empson and Dudley, who, by minute inquisition into technical offences and by nice adjustment of fines to the wealth of the offender, had made the law unpopular and the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... of Owain Glendwr's speech to his once-trusted friend. And it was declared that the doom had been fulfilled in all things; that live in as miserly a manner as they would, the Griffiths never were wealthy and prosperous—indeed that their worldly stock ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Indians lodged. When he got off he lay two days hidden in the hold of the vessel that was to carry him away. Then the Indians came out and so frightened its officers that he was sent ashore and put under the care of a miserly old fellow who ate the most of the food that was provided for Jogues. While he was hidden in this man's garret he was within a few feet of Indians who came there to trade. Finally the Dutch satisfied the Indians by paying a large ransom and shipped Jogues ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... looks as if it were "tied in" close to the hand, the person is timid, easily frightened by both people and circumstances, narrow-minded in his views, and miserly in his habits. It is a well-established fact that the thumbs of all misers are "tied in" and cramped-looking. It is perhaps this very fear of things and people that in the end makes ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... and patient—continuously anxious to get at the truths of occult philosophy, but cool enough to bide their time when obstacles come in the way—that what looks, at first sight, like a grudging and miserly policy in this matter on the part of our illustrious teachers can be endured. Most men persist in judging all situations by the light of their own knowledge and conceptions, and certainly by reference to ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye, my conscience is in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... sadder still: 'And oh, if men might some time see How piteous-false the poor decree That trade no more than trade must be! Does business mean, "Die, you — live, I"? Then "Trade is trade" but sings a lie: 'Tis only war grown miserly. If business is battle, ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... was no matter; they were so new, so strange, so puzzling,—the beautiful, the quaint, and the faulty were so interwoven, that nobody cared to separate these elements, to take the trouble to criticize or to thank; and thus, though we all gladly enough received, we kept our miserly voices to ourselves, and she never met with any adequate recognition. After her first book, England quietly ignored her,—they could not afford to be so startled; as Sir Leicester Dedlock said, "It was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... life. No longer sought as the belle of the soldiers' ball-rooms, she aspired to leadership among their wives and families, and was accorded that pre-eminence rather than the fierce battle which was sure to follow any revolt. She became avaricious,—some said miserly,—and Clancy miserable. Then began the downward course. He took to drink soon after his return from a long, hard summer's campaign with the Indians. He lost his sergeant's stripes and went into ...
— The Deserter • Charles King |
